• Ad Age , Monday, September 8, 2008 9:31 AM

Retired lawyer Stephen Beck recently spent an hour at a Starbucks in Manhattan patiently demonstrating his Amazon Kindle to perfect strangers. He's part of an army of enthusiasts who volunteer to show the device to prospective owners as part of Amazon's See a Kindle in Your City marketing program. Think of it as real-world social networking. Or taking online consumer product reviews -- a concept Amazon championed early -- to the in-person level.

"We got feedback from Kindle owners who love their Kindle, but some were saying they have trouble reading their Kindle in public because people ask what is it and can I use it," says Drew Herdener, senior PR manager at Amazon. Meanwhile, prospective Kindle owners were asking how they could see the product. Why not connect the two?

On Amazon's See a Kindle in Your City message board, hundreds of threads have cropped up with Kindle show-and-tell requests and offers. Even though the product has inspired rabid fandom, some on the boards have questioned why people turn themselves into marketing pawns for nothing in exchange. "Amazon is pretty bold to make this suggestion without any incentives," posts Thomas Petrillo. "In fact, Amazon is pretty stingy."

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